South Kern Compost Manufacturing Facility Changes Direction

Synagro’s South Kern Compost Manufacturing Facility (SKCMF) biosolids composting facility at South Kern Industrial Center is one of the largest biosolids composting facilities in California. Until recently the facility used an Aerated Static Pile (ASP) system with negative aeration with a biofilter, manual aeration controls, and our 2nd Generation ECS RF Teleprobe™ monitoring system.

That is all changing now...a current facility upgrade is switching the process to an ASP with positive aeration, adding an Engineered Compost Systems (ECS) CompTroller™ (automated aeration control and monitoring), and our 3rd generation RF Teleprobe™ (wireless temperature monitoring system). This facility must comply with California’s San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District’s VOC and Ammonia emission limits. SKCMF found through testing (BioCycle, March 2015) that by keeping the bio-layer “cap” below certain temperatures with irrigation that the VOC’s and NH3 emissions were adequately controlled. New features have been added to the RF Teleprobes™ and to the CompTroller™ to provide temperature feedback control of the bio-layer system’s irrigation.

ECS is in Full Production of its 3rd Generation RF Teleprobes™

ECS delivered its first generation RF Teleprobes™ in 1998 and has been supporting and improving them continuously ever since. The second generation probes rolled out in 2005 with updated radio components. In 2011 the 3rd generation was released featuring longer battery life and more durable components. Now, with the South Kern process upgrade requiring over 200 RF Teleprobes™ with new requirements of monitoring the bio-layer, we have again upgraded the RF and battery performance, and enhanced the overall product durability making our new 3rd generation RF Teleprobe™ better than ever before.

ECS engineers redesigned the RF Teleprobes™ controller hardware and software making it compatible with previous generations. During this development, components were extensively tested in our Seattle manufacturing facility for thermal shock, extreme temperatures, and RF noise tolerance. We also took stock of our repair logs to further upgrade the mechanical design to make them even tougher (but they are still no match for a wheel loader). Thank you, dear clients, for showing us how to be better at what we do…we appreciate it.